


gold and glittering

by florenceandthemachine



Category: 9-1-1 (TV)
Genre: Cheesy, Christmas, Christopher Diaz is a National Treasure, Eddie Diaz is a Good Dad, Falling In Love, First Kiss, Fluff, Found Family, Getting Together, Inspired by Hallmark Christmas Movies, M/M, Miscommunication, Tropes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-18
Updated: 2021-01-18
Packaged: 2021-03-16 23:46:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,602
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28839597
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/florenceandthemachine/pseuds/florenceandthemachine
Summary: you can all thank Eli for this, who inspired everything when she asked what my favorite Hallmark trope was.(the answer? all of them.)--The roar of the ancient diesel drowned out any hope for conversation as the truck easily cut through the snow, and Buck felt his stomach start to sink every minute that they drove without seeing any sign of life.Fuck. He might have actually frozen out here.“Eddie?”Buck looked over as Eddie turned, the lights of a tiny town starting to show further down the road.“I’m B-Buck.”The way that Eddie beamed at him was second only to the hot air when it came to warming him up, leaning into the touch as Eddie reached over to squeeze Buck’s shoulder, the crinkling of the foil blanket helping distract him.“Well, Buck. Welcome to Mount Pocono.”
Relationships: Evan "Buck" Buckley/Eddie Diaz (9-1-1 TV)
Comments: 16
Kudos: 191





	gold and glittering

**Author's Note:**

  * For [elisela](https://archiveofourown.org/users/elisela/gifts), [eddiesdiaz](https://archiveofourown.org/users/eddiesdiaz/gifts).



> so [Eli](https://archiveofourown.org/users/elisela) and I got into a deep talk about Hallmark Christmas tropes and which one best fit with Buddie... which led to both of us trying to out-trope one another. enjoy. 
> 
> just like everything I have ever written this piece is dedicated to the wonderful [Cailee](https://archiveofourown.org/users/eddiesdiaz/pseuds/eddiesdiaz) who took the time to edit everything I wrote while I was half asleep so it would make sense.
> 
> xoxo flo

_“We’re sorry, your call cannot be completed as dialed. Please check the number, and try your call again.”_

Buck was cold. Buck was cold and he was bitter. Buck was cold, he was bitter, and he maybe, possibly, might have been lost. 

Wrenching his bag tighter around his shoulders, he did his best to ignore the frozen protests of his knees as he pushed through another few feet of snow, trying—and failing—not to lose his temper as he unlocked the device and dialed again. 

He had been walking for what felt like the better part of an hour, trying in vain to get in touch with… well, with anyone. He couldn’t get a call to go through; not to his shore buddies, a tow truck, hell, not even his parents. He had long since abandoned his Jeep—stuck in a snowbank, the irony of ironies, and he had tried to rock it back and forth until he ran out of gas. Trail-rated bullshit. 

In hindsight, he probably should have planned this out a little bit better. 

In hindsight… well, he probably could have planned a lot of his life out better. After high school, Buck really had thought that the Marines would be the best bet for him. He hadn’t exactly spent his whole life dreaming of it, but he knew he wanted to help people, knew he wanted to spend his time making the world a better place, and that seemed like the best way to do it.

He had taken a year or so off to… prepare himself. Saw the things in the world he wanted to see. Built himself up from the scrawny little beanpole to someone who could actually pass the physical examination. He looked good, sure, but more importantly, he _felt_ good. He felt strong enough to make a change. 

When he had opened the letter announcing his acceptance, it had felt like the best thing in the entire world. For the first time in his life, he felt like he was on the right track, like he was finally able to do what he had been wanting to do since he was 16—to help people. 

His parents were _proud_ of him, for fuck’s sake. For a minute, he had even considered calling Maddie and sharing the good news with her, but he wasn’t sure he was quite confident enough to deal with the chance that she had changed her number since leaving home. But he liked to think that she would have been proud of him, too. 

So it kind of sucked to flame out less than six months later. 

_“We’re sorry, your call cannot be completed as dialed. Please check the number, and try your call again.”_

He hadn’t spent more than a night this far in from the coast since he started basic training, but he still should have known better than to try and make the drive up from Philly in one shot. He probably should have planned to stop way before when he did, probably should have pulled off in the last town for the night, probably should have booked a motel room ahead of time. 

Hell, at the very least, he probably should have packed a pair of snowshoes, because this was Pennsylvania, where it snowed ten feet in a fucking hour whenever it wanted.

Fucking nor’easters.

_Fuck,_ he was cold. 

Okay, Buck was cold, but he was still hanging on. There was a reason he had breezed through the physical requirements in his Navy onboarding—and jumped straight up to SEAL training—and it wasn’t because a little cold was going to get to him.

Even if a fucking blizzard in Pennsylvania was a whole lot fucking more than a little cold. Maybe if he could focus, maybe if he could just fucking concentrate and push through it, he would have made it further than six months into what should have been the best career change of his entire life. 

Letting go of the Navy had probably been a fuckup, sure, but when he realized that he couldn’t make it with the SEALs, he knew that nothing in the armed forces would ever do right in the eyes of his parents. That was part of the reason he was so determined to make it up to his family home, the idle thought that maybe it being Christmas might soften the blow, might dull the shame in his father’s eyes when he told Buck how _disappointed_ he was. 

Maybe something about the twinkling lights his mother had undoubtedly paid someone to wrap around their entire house would make it a little less excruciating.

…. or maybe he should have just hid in his Jeep until he turned into a little human popsicle.

He wondered, idly, how buried his Jeep was. There was a solid inch on the hood when Buck had finally abandoned it, and now he was pretty much resigned to not seeing the thing again until the Spring. 

_“We’re sorry, your call cannot be completed as—”_

Rasping out a frustrated noise, Buck shook his phone as it died in his hands, his sheer anger overwhelming him for a moment as he pulled his arm back and launched it into the trees off the side of the road. He heard the tiny metal box smack against a green in the distance before he pulled his arm back close to his body, muscles aching at the sudden motion as he was left alone with nothing but his own thoughts and the sound of his heavy breathing. 

So. To take stock, yet again. 

He was cold. He was walking through snow in jeans, a hoodie, and a pair of flimsy-ass high-top Chucks. His car was at least a mile or so behind him, probably buried in the fallen snow by now—and he was okay with that, honestly, because he’d rather be frozen outside than buried alive. He had a duffle bag strapped to his back with absolutely zero survival gear, no GPS, and now, no cell phone. 

God, no fucking wonder he hadn’t made it as a SEAL. He couldn’t even keep himself alive in his home state, let alone on some life or death mission. 

At least it was quiet out. There were no streetlights, no stoplights, no light pollution of any kind this far away from any major metropolitan area, just the beauty of the full moon and the way the stars reflected off the falling snow. 

… It was kind of pretty. Hell, it could even be peaceful. 

Or, at least, it would have been, if he wasn’t probably going to wind up buried by morning.

He wasn’t sure how far he had made it when his pace started to slow, only that around his billionth step, his feet could only trudge through the snow so fast. There was only so far he could go through snow up to his knees, flimsy hoodie tight around his frame, fingers nearly locked around the straps of the duffle bag on his back. His teeth were chattering, but he was okay with that; it was when he stopped shivering he knew he had to worry. At least the moon was still bright in the sky above him. 

His breath continued to come out in shivering pants as he hunched his shoulders up as close to his neck as they would go, focusing on the rhythmic sound of snow shuffling around his legs, of wind whipping through the tree branches above him, the sound of ice crunching beneath tires, and—

Wait. 

Tires.

Tires?

Feeling adrenaline hit his system as he turned, Buck scanned through the trees, barely registering the noise he made when he spotted what looked like headlights start to cut through the trees. The sound of an engine hum came shortly after, the low rumble reverberating around him, and in that moment Buck became completely unaccountable for his actions. 

He started shouting, his voice rough and raw in the cold, arms waving above his head as he tried to flag the truck down. He stumbled in the snow as he started to trod forward to where the truck was cutting through the trees, a few meters away from the path he had taken—fuck, was he not even on the road anymore?—his voice getting more and more desperate as he tried anything to avoid going unnoticed. He wished he had kept his phone (not that it would have done much good dead, but a flat pane of glass would have done more to reflect light than his dull, Navy fatigues) and settled on his keys instead, hurling them at the vehicle in a last ditch effort when headlights turned to taillights.

He heard the metal make contact with the bed of the truck (thank ever-loving fuck) as he stumbled out further into the road, almost falling into one of the tire tracks that the truck had left behind.

Buck thought he might have cried (hell, he thought he might have been crying) as the truck reversed back up the road. He squinted, trying to make out the words painted on the passenger door— ‘POCONO FIRE / RESCUE’ was only barely legible through layers of dirt, snow, and chipped paint, his body frozen solid to the spot as a door slammed and a man stepped out.

“Hey, are you—holy shit, are you okay? How long have you been out here?”

He looked like an angel. Buck was still shivering, sure, but that was at the back of his mind as a blanket was thrown around his shoulders, immediately sinking into the extra layer. 

“C-Car, car broke—broke down.”

Buck leaned back into the warmth as the other man opened the passenger side door, leaning out of the way of the swinging metal, all too happy to be corralled into the truck. He only barely managed to hold back a noise from escaping his throat as he felt the other male lean over him, turning the defroster on high and tossing Buck’s duffle bag into the back of the cab as he closed the door. He pulled the foil blanket around himself that much tighter as the man walked back around to the driver’s side of the vehicle, struggling to wrap his mind around what the hell had just happened. 

‘Saved’ was a strong, strong word, but somehow, it seemed to be more than appropriate at this point, shivering in his seat as the driver’s door opened again, the other male joining him in the cab, not bothering to even put the truck in gear as he turned back to Buck again. 

“We’re gonna get you warmed up, okay? You don’t look like you have any frostbite, but your lips are blue and you’re shivering pretty bad. Can you take a deep breath and open your hands for me?” 

Buck blinked as he looked down at himself, not realizing that his hands were still clenched, arms pulled tight to his chest. As he started to slowly extend his frozen fingers, his savior reached over, big hands incredibly gentle as he took Buck’s hands in his own, checking his extremities for frostbite, and Buck was struggling to focus on anything but the warmth pooling in his fingertips. 

“Listen, my name is Eddie, I’m gonna make sure you’re not hypothermic and we’re going to get you warmed up. How long were you out there?”

Buck tried to get his shivering under control as he shook his head, taking a deep breath, running through the signs of hypothermia in his head as he answered. “Not—not long. Couple hours. Maybe. M-I’m okay, just cold.”

Apparently unsatisfied with Buck’s answer, Eddie frowned and threw the truck into gear. “Well, let’s get you back into town, and then I’ll judge that for myself.” 

The roar of the ancient diesel drowned out any hope for conversation as the truck easily cut through the snow, and Buck felt his stomach start to sink every minute that they drove without seeing any sign of life. 

Fuck. He might have actually frozen out here. 

He reached forward to redirect one of the vents toward his face, sighing in relief as he felt warm, dry air against his face. The sound of the truck dimmed into background noise as Eddie spoke rapid-fire into his radio—if he was a little less frozen he probably would have been a lot more nosy—five minutes easily melting into ten as he slowly rolled his jaw, feeling the aching, tense muscles start to release.

“Eddie?”

Buck looked over as Eddie turned, the lights of a tiny town starting to show further down the road. 

“I’m B-Buck.”

The way that Eddie beamed at him was second only to the hot air when it came to warming him up, leaning into the touch as Eddie reached over to squeeze Buck’s shoulder, the crinkling of the foil blanket helping distract him.

“Well, Buck. Welcome to Mount Pocono.”

* * *

Buck was warm.

That was the first thing he noticed when he woke up, pulled immediately into the world of the waking the moment he heard the door to his bedroom open. He was warm, he was comfy, hell, he felt _good_.

Buck had been ready to throw his entire life at Eddie’s feet the moment he had pulled over, but even then, he was shocked at the way the night had turned out. Buck had been thankful for the ride and pleasantly surprised by the extra blanket, but beyond that he figured he would be dropped off at a clinic or a motel or something, somewhere he could be warm for the night.

What he did not expect was for Eddie to take him right to his house, where he _lived_. Eddie took him home, gave him a change of clothes, and gave him a bed. A real, actual bed. He hadn’t had a bed in six months—the Navy had bunks, or cots, _nothing_ that was even close to a bed—and Eddie was just giving him a mattress.

If Buck wasn’t still thawing out, he probably would have professed his love to Eddie then and there. Because sure, Buck didn’t expect a bed—but what he _really_ didn’t expect was the way that Eddie smiled at him when Buck said thanks.

Anyway. Waking up.

The first thing that he noticed was that he was warm. The second thing he noticed, though, was that he wasn’t alone. 

There were some scuffles and a bump against the bed, and Buck could now just hear some faint breathing—he didn’t think it was Eddie, there were heavier footsteps throughout the house, but that meant he was absolutely clueless as to who was currently watching over him. Keeping his eyes closed, Buck rolled over, curling a little closer into the pillow, intentionally putting that much more space between he and whoever— 

“Are you dead?”

…huh.

Opening his eyes, Buck blinked a few times, letting the world fall into focus. The room he was in was warm and brightly lit. He could see a wide window in the living room through his open door, revealing where the snowstorm of the night prior had given way to a mostly blue sky. And right up close and personal, there was a pair of grey eyes, framed by some big plastic frames. 

Huh. 

“Chris, it’s time for — Christopher!” 

Buck blinked, sitting upright as Eddie’s head popped into the room, the kid—Christopher—beaming up at him like nothing was out of the ordinary. Eddie immediately scooped him up and shot an apologetic look in Buck’s direction, as Buck straightened himself, standing up and tossing the pillows back to the bed. “Chris, come on, buddy, I told you to leave our guest alone.”

“But we never have guests.”

“Well, that doesn’t mean—“

“I was curious.”

“Christopher—“

“Hey, Eddie, it’s all good. I was already up, or… something," Buck interrupted, running a hand through his messy hair, shooting a wink toward a giggling Christopher.

Looking up and meeting Eddie’s gaze, Buck’s stomach did a little flip flop at the weird look Eddie shot him, nodding slowly. “Right, already up… or something," he said slowly, and Buck felt his cheeks pink up as Eddie let Chris down. “Anyway, bathroom’s down the hall, get changed and we’ll do breakfast," Eddie said, cuffing the back of Chris’ head playfully as he pulled his son out of the room. 

“Dad can’t cook, so we have cereal!” 

“Chris, come on!”

Buck laughed as he stepped down the hall, finding another change of clothes waiting for him on the bathroom counter. He sighed again as he stripped out of the clothes he’d used to thaw out the night prior, pulling on a slightly-too-big tee shirt (Eddie’s, if the size and the screen printed E. DIAZ on the back gave anything away) and a well-worn pair of jeans. 

He felt a familiar tug in the pit of his stomach as he ran his hand over the hem of the shirt, a sneaking suspicion building as he made his way back out to the kitchen, where Eddie already had a bowl set out for him. 

“Why are you being so nice to me?” 

Eddie snorted, back turned to Buck as he took a seat next to Chris at the counter and poured his own cereal. “Buck, Chris wasn’t lying. Cereal is not that nice, don’t worry about it.”

Raising his brow as Eddie turned, Buck held a thoroughly unimpressed look until Eddie cracked, laughing as he tilted his head to the radiator in the living room. That nagging feeling in his stomach sunk into full-on dread when he followed Eddie’s gaze, seeing where Buck’s fatigues had been drying overnight. “I may not have been a fancy Navy-boy, but I still know to never leave a man behind. Though, you barely look old enough to be out of boot...”

Buck had to swallow a few times before he could actually speak, looking down at his bowl, trying to loosen his grip on his spoon as he shrugged. “Made it all the way through boot, then, uh. Entry separation, a few days ago. All I wanted to do was help people, but couldn’t cut it anymore," he mumbled, feeling his face heat up. 

Eddie hummed as he turned around, and Buck could actually feel his gaze like a set of lasers raking over his flesh. “Well…” Eddie started, and Buck internally tensed up, knowing full well that an early discharge was only barely above dishonorable. 

“Well, better to know sooner rather than later. It took me four years to realize that the Army was the wrong choice for me." Eddie continued, and Buck looked up, surprise evident on his face. “And even then, it took, like, a full year to trade out sand dunes for mountains… You’re still a good man, Buck. I can tell," he added with a wink, startling a laugh out of Buck as he sat upright, his face now warm for a whole different reason.

Damn, Eddie was nice.

Buck shook his head as he finally shoveled some cereal into his mouth, chewing thoughtfully as he shrugged his shoulders. “I mean, I guess you’re right. I didn’t even have to leave the country, I just… uh… wait, did you say mountains?” Buck asked, the greater part of what Eddie had said finally sinking in. 

Eddie arched his brow as he smiled, gesturing out the window with his spoon, and Buck almost choked as he tried to swallow. He had made the drive up to his family house plenty of times—and while he was used to driving through literal forests of trees, seeing anything above sea level was new. Seeing an entire mountain range right outside? That was on a whole other level. 

“Mount Pocono. Like, the Poconos Mountains. Like, we’re in the mountains. Right now.”

Eddie and Chris wore identical goofy grins for a split second before Eddie started to laugh, shaking his head. “Okay, well, the good news is I’ve already called to have your car towed back into town. Bosko will be able to fix you up right, don’t worry about it. Once the little man finishes his breakfast, we’ll load up and head out.”

God damn, Eddie was _nice_.

The drive to the garage was mercifully short, even with their detour to drop Chris off at what Buck assumed was a fellow first responder’s house (“We all take turns kid-wrangling when we’re off duty,” Eddie explained, “otherwise nothing would ever get done.”), and before long Buck was climbing out of the truck, space heaters blasting against his face as he and Eddie walked into an open bay door. 

“Bosko! What’s the word from the mountaintop?”

“Diaz, we’re in the mountains. That joke was old the first hundred times you told it, it’s ancient now.”

Buck snorted as Eddie beamed, apparently very proud of his terrible joke, though his attention was immediately brought to the white iceberg that had been dragged into the center of the shop. “Holy shit, you actually found it! I thought for sure it would be buried until the Fourth of July.” 

“It almost was, but Diaz had me up and hunting it down unfairly early this morning. You’re the stray he took in, then?” 

Buck blinked, stepping out of the way as a figure wheeled out from beneath his baby, misstepping for only a moment before he instinctively offered a hand to help her up. “Uh, yeah. I’m Buck—err, Evan Buckley, but I go by Buck. You’re Bosko, then?”

The smile he got in return was more predatory than anything, giving Buck a very obvious once-over as she stood up and shook his hand. 

“Lena Bosko. Everyone calls me Bosko… but you can call me Lena, if you want," she said, her smile turning a little more predatory as Eddie immediately objected behind her. 

“What?! I’ve known you for three years and you still don’t let me call you L—“

“Not now, Diaz, the grownups are talking.”

_“He’s, like, twelve!”_

“So, Evan-goes-by-Buck. The good news is, I can get the parts you need. When you slid, you fucked up your CV casing and the flange half of your… okay, I can see your eyes glazing over," she started, sweeping a hand over the vehicle as Eddie snickered behind her. “But the good news is I can get you back on the road. The bad news is, it’ll might be a week before I get the parts in.”

A week... meaning that Buck probably wouldn’t be out before Christmas Eve, if he was out before the holidays at all.

Well, that was a fucking sucker punch. Buck felt his face fall as Eddie’s snickering died down immediately, giving himself only a moment before he likely turned what he hoped would be a smile into a grimace. Lena gave a half smile of her own as something of an apology as she reached over and grabbed a clipboard, flipping it over into Buck’s hands where there was a rundown of the work that would be needed. “Just sign through here and I can get started. I don’t have any cars to offer you as a rental, but even if I did, I’d like to see it back one day without having to fish it out of an ice hole, so… where were you even headed?”

Buck laughed, not minding the teasing joke as long as it came with a change of topic. “Lake George, actually. Uh, Upstate New York? Like a tiny little Canada?… stone’s throw from Vermont?” He offered, eventually getting the hint from her blank expression. “Well, it’s like four hours from here. And if a Jeep got stuck, I’d probably do even worse in a rental, so… thanks anyway, I guess.”

“You got a place to stay for a week or so?”

“He’ll be staying with Chris and I.”

Eddie’s voice cut back into the conversation before Buck could say anything, and both he and Lena looked at him in surprise. “Eddie, you don’t have to—I mean, I’m sure I can find a hotel or something, it’s—“

“Buck, it’s no big deal.”

“At least let me pay you for it, I can—“

“Wasn’t asking you, Buck, not a chance," Eddie said with a smile, immediately waving away his concerns as Buck sputtered. “Anyway, Bosko, how’s the fiancée?”

Buck took the clear change in topic for what it was as Lena took the question and ran with it, immediately tuning the rest of their conversation out as he watched Eddie’s expression fall into an easy smile. 

A full day of trying to suggest otherwise hadn’t done shit for getting Buck any leeway in at least getting Eddie to consider charging him, but in all honesty, Buck couldn’t be mad about it—not when he got to be distracted with the sheer elation that was Christopher Diaz, his self-proclaimed new best friend. 

Maddie loved calling him an overgrown child himself before she moved away (and yeah, remembering that put a little pang in his heart) but the fact of the matter was that as soon as Chris had brought out his Legos, the two of them had apparently cemented a blood pact, one that ran far beyond the afternoon and into dinnertime.

Eddie ordered Chinese takeout.

Buck did his walrus-chopstick impression. 

Chris laughed so hard that egg-drop soup came out of his nose.

All in all, it was a good night.

The kind of night that Buck thought, honestly, would come after years of knowing someone and their kid...

...not after less than 48 hours under the same roof. 

“So, I was thinking.”

Buck was standing beside Eddie at the sink, absentmindedly wiping a few dishes dry as Eddie handed them over to him. Buck hummed thoughtfully, stacking another dish as Eddie looked over at him. 

“Thinking about letting me pay you rent for the week?” 

“Come to work with me tomorrow.”

Buck almost dropped the dish he was holding as Eddie turned to him, surprise clear on his face as he gestured for Eddie to continue.

Eddie sighed as his motions slowed, chewing the words over before he finally continued. “When I left the Army... I was kind of lost. I wandered around with Chris for too long, from one place to another, never staying in one place for long. About three years ago, we were driving down 380 and there was a wreck in front of us. The fire and rescue team was there in like a minute, pulled up right as we did, and I just... jumped out.” 

Buck felt his brows creep into his hairline as he grabbed another dish, letting Eddie continue. 

“Pulled a kid from the car, helped out with the medics, kept people back from the scene… nothing big, but I was _helping_. For the first time since I left the service, it felt like I was part of a team again. The only difference was, I could come home to my kid every night instead of falling asleep on a cot in the desert.”

Swinging his legs, Buck lifted himself onto the counter, sitting right next to Eddie as the other male drained the sink. “So that was how you got here, hmm? That’s how Eddie begins?” 

Flashing another small smile, Eddie wiped his hands off on the dish towel, leaning against the lip of the sink beside Buck. “Look. Obviously, you can say no. But you’re stuck here for a week and honestly, we could really use the help. So if you wanted to join us, I think you’d be good at it.”

* * *

“You’re doing great, Buck. Just keep it nice and slow.”

Buck, as it turns out, was very good at it. As nervous as he had been to meet what Eddie called his work family, he should have known well enough that Eddie would surround himself with good people wherever he was.

And good people they were.

Eddie had been right when he told Buck how much help they needed—from what he could see, the day shift was all of three firefighters and a captain, and the night shift sounded like it had even less help. Buck was, quite literally, welcomed with open arms, even after he explained that he would just be helping out for the few days he would be there.

There was a level of trust in the firehouse—the kind of trust that made him feel more at home in two days than he had in six months with the Navy.

It was that kind of trust that had Buck harnessed up, sliding on his belly along the ice of Stillwater Lake, getting closer and closer to the partially submerged vehicle on the cracked ice before him.

“Course I’m doing great, I got you right here with me.”

Buck was having the time of his life, honestly; getting to work in the field was better than any of his Navy training, and he felt himself sink back into a stilled kind of focus, keeping his breathing under control even as he heard Eddie’s sputtered response over the radio. 

Alright, he was flirting. Sue him.

Things were going along smoothly enough as he finally made it to the back of the car, tuning out the sounds of Eddie and Hen bickering about whether or not Eddie was blushing and Kinard treating the vehicle driver. His movements became slower and more cautious as the ice he was sliding over became more cracked and precarious, steel cable gripped tightly in one hand as he pulled himself the last leg up to the back bumper. 

The plan was simple. He’d attach the cable to the steel beam in the back of the vehicle, use it to pull himself back, and then they’d tow the car in—likely decimating any ice between the two points... and the underside of the car.

By the time Buck was ready to unhook the cable from his vest, the car was about halfway submerged; the water was lapping at the rear door handle, the rear window almost perfectly at Buck’s eye level, and that was the only reason Buck was able to see something inside.

Which is why the simple plan went immediately to shit.

“There’s someone else in the car.”

Buck heard radio silence as the bickering immediately died down, his body moving quickly as he swung around to the passenger side of the vehicle, feeling the tell-tale vibration of cracking ice beneath his hands and knees as he hoisted himself up. 

Giving a few sharp kicks to the ice near the passenger door of the car, Buck sucked in a breath as his lower half plunged into the ice water, doing his absolute best to fight the urge to curl his legs into his chest and maintain the heat that was rapidly being sapped from his body. 

He saw a young girl with a mess of brown hair and pouty blue lips, and that was all he could take in before he had to look away, the similarities shaking him like a jolt to the system.

This wasn’t Maddie. Maddie wasn’t a teenager. Maddie wasn’t here.

The door was locked, because of course it was, but a quick few jabs at the window behind her shattered the window and let Buck reach in to unlock it manually, pulling the door open and catching the woman in his arms as she slumped toward him. 

“Pull me in, now!”

Finally keying back into his radio, Buck forced his legs to kick as hard as he could as he took on the additional weight, cutting off the panicked, frantic words that were buzzing in his ear.

Buck let his legs give out as his back slammed into the ice shelf, the power of the winch cracking the ice behind him, legs floating behind him as he did his absolute best to keep the young woman wrapped in his arms. He let himself tune back into the panicked chatter on the radio, trying to keep his muscles moving before he wound up with two leg-cicles.

He grunted in pain as he felt the ice finally hold, body yanked out of the water and back onto the solid surface of the lake as the speed of the winch picked up, thankful for dull numbness from the cold water as his legs trailed behind him. 

It wasn’t Maddie. It wasn’t Maddie. It wasn’t Maddie.Wiggling the fingers on one of his hands, he pulled his pointer finger to her neck, trying in vain to find her pulse over the rough journey along the ice, giving up quickly and moving his hand to her lips instead.

“She’s—she’s breathing, only barely," Buck called out over the radio, hearing Hen and Kinard pulling things from the rig. “Cap, you still got the driver there?”

“He bolted, Buck, as soon as you jumped in the water.”

Chim’s voice gave away exactly how he felt about that, and Buck felt himself swallow involuntarily—while Chim was definitely plenty playful with his team around the station, he had a knack for sinking back into Captain mode whenever he was out on a call, had a way of holding himself that made Buck want to stand at attention. “You’re coming in hot, Hen’s got a board ready.”

Buck felt a sigh escape him as his body finally slowed to a stop, muscles turning into jelly after being dragged back to shore, Hen and Kinard easily pulling the young girl from his arms and onto their own board as they bagged her and started their work.

He felt a monumental sigh leave his body, eyes closing in relief for only a moment before another set of hands was pulling at his shoulders.

Eddie was hovering over him, eyes wide and worried as he pulled Buck into a sitting position, hands checking over every inch of him as Buck worked to even his breathing out. 

He finally caught Eddie’s gaze as he heard the door to the ambulance slam, the ancient engine roaring to life as he steadied his breath.

“Buck, you alright? How’s your back, everything moving okay, you—“

“Is she okay?”

Eddie’s questions came to a halt as Buck spoke, his surprise giving way to a small, private smile as he nodded.

“Yeah, Buck, she’s good. What about you? You good?”Eddie’s voice was pointed, leaving no room for redirection, and Buck found himself nodding his head and smiling as he watched the ambulance pull away. 

“Yeah. Yeah, Eddie, I’m great.”

* * *

The weirdest part of joining a team, as far as Buck was concerned, wasn’t the time they spent together on shift.

It was the time they spent together _off_ shift that really threw him for a loop.

Buck… maybe didn’t have the best idea as to what a healthy adult relationship looked like, but anyone who looked at him would probably have figured that out—actively ignoring the fact that he wouldn’t make it back to his family for Christmas was probably a dead giveaway.

“Dad! Buck!”

“Chris!”

Buck beamed as he leaned out of the locker room, seeing the kids of the PFD pulling Karen into the firehouse. He rushed to button up his shirt as he rolled his shoulders, stowing the rest of his turnout gear in his locker.

Stepping out into the main bay, Buck laughed as Eddie swooped Chris into his arms, his own smile brightening as the giggling boy struggled half-heartedly in Eddie’s hug. “Dad, stop, I have to say hi to Buck!”

Eddie gasped in mock offense as he let Chris down, clutching at his chest as Karen laughed. “It was bound to happen, Eddie. All day long it was Buck this and Buck that.”

“Oh really?” Eddie said, pouting as he looked in Buck’s direction, who resolutely ignored his gaze as he bent down to high five Chris.

“Mmhm. Did you know that Buck was from New York? And that he is, and I quote, very big and strong.”

“Karen…” 

“And I heard that yesterday, he pulled a beautiful lady out of a lake like Prince Charming. Very macho.” 

Buck’s face was burning red at this point, and understandably so; what he didn’t understand was why, when he looked up, Eddie was just as red as he was. 

And why Karen was _grinning_ at him like that.

“And did you know—“

“Okay!” Eddie said, clapping his hands together as Karen laughed, abandoning Eddie for her own family as Eddie turned back to Chris and Buck.

Buck rose his brow as Eddie reached out to ruffle Chris’ hair, his own curious smile still firmly in place. “Alright, little man, Buck and I both have a morning off tomorrow, what should we do tonight? I know we usually hang out at home, but we could go out to dinner, maybe show Buck around town? We could go to the arcade, or maybe the movies, or… well, that’s kind of it to do around here as far as night life goes. We used to have a karaoke bar downtown, but—” 

“But Dad sounds like Dory when he sings.”

Buck had to literally choke back a laugh as Eddie gaped at his kid, the utter betrayal written on his face for half a moment before he bent over and wrapped his arms around Chris’ knees. It was clearly a practiced move as he stood up, swinging him upside down, Chris’ little giggles turning into shrieks of delight as he held onto his glasses for dear life. 

Buck crouched down, attempting a serious face as he looked at Chris, tilting his head in mock curiosity. “Chris, you okay? You look a little different.”

“Buck, save me!”

SIghing dramatically, Buck grabbed his hands as he stood upright, Chris’ giggles renewed as he hung between Eddie and Buck like a sack of flour, swinging back and forth in their grip. 

“Well, if hearing Eddie’s beautiful whale songs are out of the question,” Buck started, winking down at Chris as Eddie stuck his tongue out at him, “maybe we should stick to the homestead? Chris, I bet you have a ton of movies we can watch together, right?”

Eddie saw right through his request, if the look he shot Buck was anything to go by, but Buck didn’t care—he wasn’t about to interrupt Eddie and Chris’ life any more than he already was.

“I’ll even order takeout.”

“Good, cause Dad can’t cook!”

_“Christopher!”_

Buck’s laughter carried his good mood throughout the evening, finding himself more at home on Eddie’s couch than he had felt anywhere else in a long time. He had dedicated himself to stuffing as many mediocre potstickers as he could into his mouth, savoring that minute level of satisfaction that came from eating something that wasn’t from a mess hall.

Chris had pulled an entire series of movies for the night (High School Musical, Eddie had informed him, after informing Buck that no one was allowed to speak while Sharpay was speaking) and built himself into a pillow fort around the couch, inviting Buck and Eddie to join him sometime during the second musical number. 

Eddie, somehow, had taken it all in stride. 

Buck couldn’t tell if it was because Eddie was just that good of a father, or if he was just that good of a person, but anyone who could keep up with Buck’s potsticker-fueled antics while successfully narrating the romance between Troy and Gabriella was a serious gold star kind of human in Buck’s book. 

At some point during the second movie (“Eddie, why are they on a golf course now?”) Buck felt a heavy weight smack against his arm, and he looked up at Eddie in surprise as Chris snored softly against his shoulder. 

When the second movie finally ended, Buck stretched his free arm, being careful not to jostle Chris or tug at any of the blankets. “Alright, Eddie, I don’t know if I have the brainpower to sit through more singing…” 

His whisper died off into nothingness as he stretched his neck, looking over to Eddie, only to find the other male asleep, body protectively curled around Chris’ prone form. 

Buck _should_ have woken them both up, and helped them both into bed. 

He _should_ have, maybe, carried Chris to his room and tucked him in, or at least helped Eddie clean up after their Chinese takeout adventure. 

He _should_ have done a lot of things. 

But in the end, if he turned off the television and let himself enjoy the closeness of another pair of humans, if he pulled the blanket a little closer around Chris’ chin and Eddie’s shoulder, if he closed his eyes and let the feeling of family wash over him, a feeling he had all but forgotten…

Well, that was his own business.

* * *

“Eddie?”

“Yeah, Buck?”

“What… what is happening here?”

Buck struggled to find his words as the scene unfolded before him, trying his best to make sense of the chaos he had walked into. He had been expecting something a little catastrophic when Eddie had ushered him into the ambulance and tore out through the firehouse bay.

An expo center full of what looked like wannabe reality television stars wasn’t… quite that.

“Wedding season, Buck. Wedding season in the Poco—Carla!”

Eddie cut himself off as he was waved over by a shorter woman, her curly hair and generally unimpressed attitude setting her aside from the fray. Buck followed in his footsteps, smiling as Eddie put his hand on the small of his back. “Buck, this is Carla, guru for all things in the wedding planning business, and I’m assuming you have something good for us?”

Carla smiled as she nodded to the pair of them, abnormally cheerful for someone that Buck assumed called 911 for medical help. “Well, Buck and Eddie, meet Ali. Ali, meet Buck and Eddie.” 

Buck rose his brow as Carla stepped aside, seeing a short, reedy girl with a brown bob sniffling in a folding chair. She was clutching her shoulder with her opposite hand, and even through her dark sweater, Buck could see blood spattered against the fabric. 

She was sitting beside another man in a blue uniform—police, or a medic from another station, maybe?—who was talking to her in low tones as she leaned against him, but both of them looked up as soon as Eddie kneeled down. 

“Alright, Ali, can you tell me what happened?”

“I w-won!”

Buck had to clench his jaw to hold back a laugh of disbelief as Eddie shined a light in her eyes. “You won?”

“The last girl holding the tiara won a dream honeymoon, and I was the last girl holding it, and…” Ali’s voice was quickly becoming less clear and more blubbering as she worked herself up. “...and I won and the other bitch flipped out and now she’s going to jail and I’m going to have a big gross scar on my _wedding day_ and I’m going to be _ugly_!”

Her sobs finally broke through as she moved her hand aside, and Buck felt his eyes widen as he looked over her torn sleeve. And then her torn flesh. And then chunks of… what must have been a shattered tiara, embedded deep into her arm.

“Alright. Well, good news is nothing here looks too serious… hey. You.” 

Buck blinked as Eddie spoke, his suddenly curt tone throwing him for a loop, though his curiosity only grew when he realized Eddie was addressing the man that had been sitting with Ali a moment ago. He wasn’t the only one who was surprised—the officer looked like he had just been caught off duty, but Eddie didn’t give him a chance to protest as he barked out an order.

“In the back of the rig outside, I have two blue bags. One of them is filled with gauze and medical tape. I need you to grab that bag and one of the… what looks like big tweezers from the wall. Can you handle that?”

Buck frowned as the man scurried off—he didn’t think that he had ever heard Eddie be so short before—but he figured that now was not the right time to say anything, not when Eddie had already switched back into his calming medic voice as he tore away at a larger chunk of her sweater to better see the injuries.

“Alright, Ali, the good news is it doesn’t look like any of these wounds went too deep. Buck and I, we’re going to pull the metal out of your arm and I’m gonna butterfly bandage your arm nice and tight. All goes well, you’ll only need a few stitches when we get you to the hospital.” 

“Unfortunately, I don’t think your sweater is going to be quite as lucky.”

Ali let out a short, startled laugh as she nodded her head, bits of brown hair matting into the tear tracks on her cheeks as she swallowed. “This is gonna suck, huh?”

“Well, I don’t think it’ll feel good, but you’re still in a little but of shock, which will numb some of the pain. Other than that, you’ll be golden. After all, Buck has very steady hands, right Buck?” Eddie said with a smile, and Buck only had half a second to process that compliment before Eddie’s face fell back into business mode, reaching over Buck’s shoulder to grab the supplies he had requested.

Buck did his best to focus on what Eddie was doing as he worked; thankfully, it was something that was easier said and done, because Eddie narrated every step that he took along the way, from cutting away the rest of Ali’s sweater to describing exactly what he had in his hand.

The instructions carried on as he passed Buck what looked like a cross between tweezers and pliers, all but verbally guiding Buck’s hands as his own wadded up chunks of gauze, simultaneously packing them into some of the deeper wounds as he taped over each gash with an X of tape.

“Make sure you lift while you pull, so you don’t tear any—just like that, now just put a little pressure—good, wait—damn, I wish I had a third hand.” Eddie blew an errant strand of hair off of his forehead as Buck perked up, looking around, making easy eye contact with the beat cop from before.

“Hey, you good with blood, Officer…?”

“Uh—“

“Oh, absolutely not. Buck, you’re plenty of help, forget what I said. You, _Officer,_ go sit in the corner and touch nothing.”

Buck felt his mouth fall open as Eddie took the packet out of his hands, staring at him in shock before he finally let out a huff of breath and lowered his voice.

“Okay, what is your deal? Sure, he’s not a firefighter, but you don’t need to be so—“

“He’s a stripper, Buck.” 

Buck’s protest died in his throat as his jaw clicked shut, head snapping back to the other man.

“The patch on his shoulder says ‘Federal Booty Inspector’.”

_“Strippe—“_

“We’re at a wedding expo, remember? That includes bachelorette parties, and I would prefer we didn’t rely on random strippers to help patch anyone up. I feel like Ali’s suffered enough. No offense.” That last bit was directed at the decidedly _not_ paramedic as Eddie tore off a strip of the adhesive, helping Ali get more comfortable in her folding chair as Buck sunk into the one beside her.

“Hey, none taken.” God, he was talking again. Buck felt his jaw clench with embarrassment as he looked back at the male, startled to immediately make eye contact as he continued. “But in my defense, blondie, I thought you were with my company. Have you ever considered dancing? You are _way_ too pretty to not be dancing.”

“I—you—go sit in the corner!” Buck could feel his cheeks burning red as Eddie snorted on the other side of him, keeping his eyes focused on the work in front of him as he tried to will his face to be anything but a thousand degrees.

He let Ali grip his hand as Eddie continued his work, trying his best to focus on Eddie methodically pulling chunks of splintered plastic and twisted metal out of the woman’s arm, his eyes ultimately straying back to the corner. His would-be-paramedic was now chatting with two guys in scrubs and… and a man in a sleeveless button down shirt, and oh, yep, _there_ was the g-string. 

“Okay, well, nuptial strippers. That’s a thing,” he said with a sigh, finally redirecting his attention back to Ali as Eddie clipped off another strip of bandages. “And here I thought weddings were supposed to be simple and fun. Why go through all this trouble just to say ‘I Do’?”

“Because it’s the Poconos!” 

Buck did his best to hold his ground as Ali clung to his shirt, soaking through his uniform shirt with tears and snot, the look on Eddie’s face nothing short of exasperated as he tried to finish her bandages as fast as he could. “It’s the Poconos, it’s romantic, and sweet, and beautiful!”

Buck sighed as he rubbed her back, still confused as to what the fuck was going on as Eddie applied the last butterfly bandage, his smile unreadable as he looked back at Buck. “Well…there’s another thing we can agree on, I guess.”

Narrowing his eyes, Buck scowled as Eddie winked at him, the walk back to the rig mercifully short as he helped Ali inside.

“...are you still talking about the strippers? Because that’s not romantic, that’s—Eddie, why are you laughing at me?!”

* * *

“Alright, kiddo, what else is on your to-do list today?”

Eddie had all but shoved a credit card and the car keys at Buck as he was running out the door this morning. The entire PFD had apparently been called in for some volunteer work in the early morning, and Eddie had rushed to explain that Karen couldn’t watch Chris on such short notice, and “Just don’t let him overdose on sugar and you’ll be great, okay? We were gonna go Christmas shopping, there’s tons of malls open this time of year, take your pick.”

“Wait—Eddie, hold up! I can’t just… be with your kid, what if something happens?”

Eddie grinned as he turned around and opened the front door, playfully smacking Buck’s upper arm as the ladder truck rumbled down the street. “Course, Buck. No one I trust with Chris more than you!”

And then he was gone, like he hadn’t just flipped Buck’s entire world on its head.

“Can we go see Santa? I wanna give him my letter.”

Buck grinned as Chris brought him back to the present, slipping easily into his typical style of overacting. “Are you kidding? Of course we can see Santa! I have so many things to ask him for. He could probably fix my car, right? And I could use some new clothes, and we can probably get him to give the firehouse a new… truck or something, you think?”

Buck smiled as Chris cut him off with a sharp laugh, wavering for only a moment on his crutch before he regained his composure, and Buck had to admit—not for the first time—that he could absolutely see how Eddie was wrapped around this kid's finger, because he was not far behind.

Shifting his bags along his arm, he swung Chris’ hand in his own as they got into the line, thankful that they were moving through it fairly quickly. They were close enough that they could hear Santa’s Ho Ho Ho’s, and Buck felt a strange feeling of empathy for whatever poor schmuck got shoved into that bright red suit.

Buck was never one for the mall Santa scene—probably because he had only ever gone one year, when Maddie took him—but he could still appreciate the magic of it all, especially when he had a kid like Chris hanging off of his hand. 

He could appreciate it even more as they wound closer to the podium that housed Santa’s Village, almost tripping over his feet as he spotted the telltale neon green and blue color scheme that made up the Hi-Viz that Buck had become intimately familiar with over the past few days. 

He had to stifle a giggle as Chris started to talk about his Christmas list, talking about all the things he wanted to ask Santa for, minus whatever was in that super secret letter that had facilitated this entire journey, his mind wandering as he tried to imagine the brave members of the PFD dressed up in Christmas garb. Part of him figured that Chim would be the one, as the Captain, to take the role of Santa—would that mean that Hen would be stuck as Mrs. Claus?—Kinard and Eddie would be elves, he thought.

Shit, maybe he should see if he could get everyone dressed up like that for a Christmas card before he left. 

He heard another boisterous Ho Ho Ho as he and Chris wound their way through the line, keeping an ear open as Chris rambled on about his school (Miss Flores was, apparently, the best teacher in the entire world), but nothing that Chris or anyone else could say would have prepared him for the shock that hit his system as he made eye contact with Santa.

Santa might have missed a beat in his surprise as he welcomed the next kid up to sit on his lap, but Buck flat out nearly tripped over his feet, because there was no doubt in his mind. Santa may have been just over six feet and stuffed with padding, he may have been overacting and dropping his voice to a comical octave, but he had hazel eyes that Buck had admittedly been daydreaming about since he arrived in Mount Pocono.

It was _Eddie_.

“Come on up, my boy!”

Buck honestly felt about as excited as Chris looked as they climbed the stairs to Santa’s village, which he could appreciate, vastly different reasons aside. He did absolutely everything he could as he helped Chris up into Santa’s lap—his _dad’s_ lap—and if he wasn’t mistaken, he would bet money that Santa’s cheeks weren’t just rosy or jolly, and Eddie was red as a tomato beneath the beard.

He kept his hands clasped in front of his face as Chris immediately started gushing, watching Eddie’s over-exaggerated body language respond in kind. He was literally the best man for this job, and Buck felt like a fool for thinking that he would be a lowly elf in the grand Christmas scheme of things.

Honestly, Buck probably shouldn’t have been as proud as he was to identify Eddie that easily… when he was in disguise… in a very public setting. For what it was worth, even if he hadn’t realized who was in the Santa suit at first, Hen was a dead giveaway (dressed up in an ill fitting elf costume with miss colored ear tips, stuck behind the camera, looking like she absolutely might die of pure glee—even as she halfway hid herself from Chris’ view).

Buck, frankly, felt the same.

The giddy feeling was very quickly overtaken, however, by something that Buck couldn’t quite identify as soon as Hen powered the camera on. Seeing Eddie wrap his arms around Chris, and seeing the absolute elation on Chris’ face as he cheesed for the camera, without knowing that it was his dad? That was a level of emotion that Buck could not be responsible for, it was right up there with those military homecoming videos that always made Buck cry. 

Buck’s smile immediately dropped, though, the moment Chris hopped off of Santa’s lap, attention laser-focused on Buck as he beckoned the other over. “Okay, Buck, your turn!”

“Oh, uh, that’s alright, we’ll let someone else have a turn. We can—“

“Buck. You have to tell Santa what you want and take a picture with him. It’s Christmas.”

Buck’s words trailed off as he looked back to Chris, steeling himself to say no again, but…

“You _gotta._ ” 

...but he should have known that even trying to tell Chris no would be pointless.

Well.

Never let it be said that Buck couldn’t lean into the weird.

He sighed as he shrugged the bags off of his shoulder, standing them upright on the steps as he offered Eddie an apologetic look before sitting himself squarely on Eddie’s knee, making sure that he was still supporting the majority of his weight, well aware that he weighed more than the average eight year old.

“Alright, Santa, I’ll keep it quick,” he started, leaning against Eddie’s shoulder and playing up the cheese—because as long as Chris was giggling, it would be worth the unbearable embarrassment. “Chris is an angel and deserves whatever he’s asking for. Eddie’s pretty great, too, but we should really focus on Chris. So, Christmas wish number one, Chris gets everything he wants.”

Buck paused when he felt Eddie’s shoulder shake beneath his elbow, his voice breaking as he tried to keep his Santa voice on through his laughter. “It—I’m not a genie, it’s not wishes, you just tell me what you want—“

“Okay, well, what I want is a pair of boots, and that’s really boring, but definitely Christmas wish number two. Steel toed and definitely with ankle support, black or brown, lace and zip not either or, that’s really important, but I’m not too picky, right Chris?” Buck said, grinning as Chris giggled. Eddie’s shoulders were still shaking beneath him, his face bright red under the white beard and moustache, and Buck could literally see the tears of laughter pooling in the corner of his eyes.

Hen, thankfully, took pity on them both as she composed herself, her own voice an octave or so higher as she turned the camera back on. “Okay, let’s get a picture, so we can really—really remember this forever.” 

Buck’s eyes lit up as he wrapped his arms around Eddie’s shoulder, smushing their cheeks together as he slapped the biggest, goofiest grin he could on his face, kicking one leg into the air, holding the pose until the camera flashed.

* * *

“Have yourself a merry little Christmas, let your heart be light…”

Buck was certainly no stranger to the sound of Christmas carols, but waking up to a different song every morning was something that he didn’t expect to enjoy as much as he did. There was certainly something to be said about waking up to the crooning sound of Bing Crosby or Judy Garland every morning.

“From now on, our troubles will be out of sight.”

Buck had to admit, he felt a little bit guilty. He had absolutely latched on to the Christmas of it all while he was in Mount Pocono—between the Christmas tree at the station and the daily caroling wake-up calls, Buck felt like he had been able to dive deeper into the Christmas spirit in the past week than he had in the previous twenty some-odd years of life.

He had done parties before, of course. Big family events. He was no stranger to glittering lights and giant trees, because the Buckleys were huge on the presentation of it all.

But somehow...

“Here we are as in olden days, happy golden days of yore…”

...somehow, this past week blew all of that out of the water.

Swinging his legs out of his bed, Buck stretched his arms above his head, the familiar instrumental track accompanying James Taylor’s voice bringing him back to one of a few memories he actively tried to keep of earlier, family Christmases. He expected the nostalgia, as he had every morning—a comforting memory as he closed his bedroom door behind him.

What he did not expect was that the closer he got to the kitchen, the less he heard of James Taylor and the more he heard of… Eddie.

Eddie?

“Faithful friends who are dear to us, gather near to us once more.”

His feet moving on his own accord, Buck had found himself in the doorway to the kitchen, fingers wrapped tight around the wood, like he knew that this scene was not long for this world. Eddie’s voice picked up the different chords and tones of the song as the music swayed through the tinny speakers of his phone. 

Buck was mesmerized. Who could blame him?

“Through the years, we all will be together, If the fates allow, hang a shining star upon the highest b—Buck!”

Buck had stepped forward as Eddie’s voice hit that high note; he hadn’t been given a choice, because the sound of Eddie’s vibrato, deep and smooth, had sunk into his bones and drew him in like a starving man to a last meal. Eddie looked inherently guilty, like he had been caught doing something terrible; not singing while putting away last night's dishes.

“Eddie, you can sing.”

He closed the distance between them in a few easy steps, only barely noting how Eddie stepped back, turning off the music pouring from his iPhone when Buck basically cornered him.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

Buck had to laugh, because of course Eddie would immediately go on the defensive. He took a step into Eddie’s space as he leaned against the counter beside him, raising his brows. “Eddie, you can fucking _sing_. Why didn’t you say so? We should have spent this week caroling, or doing karaoke like you said, or… put you in a talent show, or something.”

Eddie chuckled, face pink as he shook his head, scratching at the back of his arm. “Well, I’m glad you appreciate it.”

Liked it? Hell, Buck was annoyed he was finding this out so late. Now he wondered just how deep Eddie’s voice could go.

“I like your singing voice. Almost as much as I like your Santa voice. Even if Chris said you sing like a whale,” Buck offered with a small smile, the expression only growing as Eddie threw his head back and laughed, a hand steadily clasped on Buck’s shoulder.

“He’s a kid and I’m his dad, everything that I do has to embarrass him, but I know that his teasing is just how he says he loves me,” Eddie said, his face warm and bright as he winked, letting his hand slide down Buck’s arm, squeezing the spot above his elbow gently. “Don’t feel bad, I’m sure he loves you enough to make fun of you too.”

“Eddie, come on. It’s been a week. A week is too soon for love.” 

Buck’s protest soon died in his throat, his face flushing bright red as Eddie only smiled, reaching over to brush some of Buck’s bed head back and out of his forehead. “I dunno…” Eddie started, his thumb ghosting over Buck’s temple before slowly, deliberately, brushing against his cheekbone. “Chris is a pretty good judge of character.”

“He, uhm, he is?” Buck felt his cheeks burn as Eddie smiled at him, his eyes involuntarily trailing down to Eddie’s lips as the other male took a half step closer into his space. 

Buck could feel his heart beating out of his chest, could feel the heat radiating off of Eddie’s chest, could feel the culmination of the week swirl around him as time seemed to slow. He followed Eddie’s lead as he leaned in, eyes closing halfway, and—

“Dad!” 

Eddie let out a little dissatisfied noise as Buck felt his entire body tense, the spell of the moment broken as Chris came barreling back into the house. Buck sucked in a breath as Eddie blinked, the sheepish smile on his face instantly easing Buck’s nerves until he found himself matching Eddie’s grin. His eyes seemed to follow Buck’s every movement as the sound of Chris’ voice drew closer, his own attention snapping toward the front room as another voice joined in.

“Eddie?”

“Ana!”

Buck nearly lost his balance as Eddie moved out of his space completely, his footsteps light as he went out to the living room, assumingly to greet whoever had joined them, leaving Buck in a near panic. He had met a lot of people over the past few days, but no one named Ana—he wasn’t even sure if the name was familiar—and here he was looking like he just rolled out of bed. 

Because he had just rolled out of bed. 

Fuck. 

He checked his hair in the microwave, trying to flatten his hair down to his skull, giving up relatively quickly as he put on his best Buckley family smile and walked out of the kitchen.

Just in time to see Eddie with his arms around an absolutely beautiful woman. 

And no, that wasn’t an exaggeration. From what Buck could see, long legs, smooth skin, and black hair curled around her face in perfect ringlets, and… Buck might have been crushing on Eddie but that didn’t mean he was blind, okay?

Most obvious was the way that Ana fit into his space in a way that seemed easy, in a way that Buck himself had thought himself privy to half a minute ago, jaw tightening as he watched her kiss his cheek. And, somehow even more painfully—

“Hey! You guys are squishing me!”

—how well Chris fit in between the two of them.

Buck felt like he had swallowed his tongue when he heard Chris’ voice shortly before the two adults separated, willing himself to sink back into the bedroom so he could at least dress in something vaguely human-looking before meeting someone that was obviously important in not only Eddie’s life, but in Chris’ life as well. 

He couldn’t quite make out what the two of them were talking about, excitedly talking over one another, forcing his time-practiced smile back on to his face as Chris spotted him. 

“Buck! We’re going to the park for lunch!”

Eddie whipped his head around, smile bright on his face and cheeks still pink as he pushed a hand back through his hair, looking all like he had forgotten that Buck was even there. “Oh, shi—shoot, sorry. Buck, this is Ana, Ana, this is Buck. Ana, Buck’s—“

_Just the stray Eddie picked up_ , the little voice in the back of Buck’s head provided, but Ana cut his internal monologue off as she smiled. 

“Buck, I’ve heard a lot about you! You’ve been helping out at the station, right?” 

Damn it, she was nice too. Why couldn’t there be a single asshole in this tiny town?

Buck nodded his head with a little laugh as he stepped forward, easily shaking her hand, though it didn’t exactly go unnoticed that as soon as his hand left hers (god her skin was so soft) that Chris immediately reached out to take it. 

“Yeah, uh, just for now anyway. Once my car is fixed, I’ll be out of Eddie’s hair. His generosity has definitely been… more than anything I could have asked for,” Buck said with another little nervous laugh. Ana’s beaming smile turned to Eddie as his face pinked up, expression a little pinched as he looked between them both.

“For whatever reason, I think that Eddie would be the first and only person to try to deny that, but maybe he’ll listen to you—Lord knows he doesn’t listen to me,” she said, tone very obviously pointed, even if it was teasing. “What do you think about that, Chris?”

“Everyone should listen to you,” Chris said dutifully, swinging Ana’s hand in his own, and Buck felt his smile turn a little more natural as Chris giggled. 

Eddie sighed dramatically as he clutched at his chest, egging himself on as Ana preened. “Betrayed by my own son. How cruel. How unfair.” 

Buck found himself laughing in spite of himself as Chris’ giggles kicked up, even as Ana sighed and shook her head.

“With all the time he spends with me, you shouldn’t even be surprised.” 

Their banter was easy, easier than any chat he and Eddie had had that week, but what could Buck expect? They obviously had spent more than a week together, and Buck had been kidding himself if he thought anything otherwise. 

Hell, he couldn’t even be mad about it all. She was obviously a good, kind person, and if Chris liked her, she was probably as flawless as she seemed… he really was the best kid ever, even if Buck got the sense that there was something he was missing as Eddie all but pouted.

Then again, there were apparently a lot of things he had been missing over the past week.

For one, he thought that Eddie was very, very single—and now he was starting to think very, very differently.

And, hell, apparently how much time Chris had spent with her.

“Buck, you’re joining us for lunch, right? Eddie and I have some details to go over for the big day,” Ana started, still smiling as she looked to Buck, and Buck felt his stomach drop through the floor as he noticed the ring on her finger for the first time, “but that won’t take long, we won’t bore you, promise.”

Buck had his hands up before she was even finished, shaking his head. “No, no, don’t let me keep you, I’m nowhere near ready and I don’t want to hold you up.”

He forced himself to look over as Eddie frowned, furrowed brows creating a little digit above his nose. “Buck, we can wait, it’s no big—“

“Seriously, it’s fine.” Buck was praying that his smile was still efficiently in place as the gravity of the situation hit him, shaking his head as he took a step back. 

He didn’t know what fucking signals he had misread—maybe his six months away from normal people had really fucked up his perspective, because Eddie was a good, honest man, and Buck knew that kind of man wasn’t the type to kiss a near stranger in his kitchen when his fiancée was coming over for lunch. No, this was squarely on him, and he wasn’t about to prolong his pain when it was his own fault for misreading the situation so severely. 

Eddie was still frowning, even as Chris tugged Ana past them both to get to the kitchen, presumably to grab whatever they needed for their big happy family lunch. Buck had to steel himself as Eddie stepped toward him, shame settling in his stomach as he tried to identify the moment in time he had miscalculated so monumentally. 

“Buck, really, we’ll wait, I meant to wake you earlier, it’s not a problem.”

Buck reached to tap Eddie’s shoulder and abandoned the motion halfway through, awkwardly waving his hand around his own collarbone before he cleared his throat. 

“Seriously. I’m going to shower and change and then probably go for a walk or something, okay? Enjoy your lunch, don’t worry about me,” Buck said, his smile much smaller as he picked his voice up. “Have fun, guys!” He called back to the kitchen, escaping as Eddie turned, Chris’ excited reply echoing from the kitchen as he made his escape to the guest room.

And if he sat on the bed and hid himself away until he heard the front door shut and Eddie’s truck rumble away, that was his own business.

* * *

“Buckley! Just the man I wanted to see.”

Buck had showered, shaved, scrubbed himself up and down, and then had bit the bullet and changed back into his fatigues, the semi-comfortable fabric helping anchor him back to reality. 

Eddie’s clothes had softened him. That was the only explanation.

He had left Eddie’s house about a half hour after Eddie had taken his happy family to lunch, walking in what he sincerely hoped was the opposite direction of wherever they were. 

Apparently, the other direction was Bosko’s Garage.

“What’s up, Lena? What’s the, uh, the news from… wherever?”

Buck’s half hearted attempts to follow Eddie’s greeting combined with his awkward smile was apparently the key to Lena’s sense of humor, and Buck felt a little proud as she had to literally stop in her tracks as she laughed at him. 

“Oh god, I’m going to use that against Diaz forever, that—that was great, thank you. I wanted to let you know your parts came in last night, in an hour or so I’ll have your Jeep ready to hit the road. You wanna come get it after the holidays?”

Buck’s smile faltered as things sunk in, eyes flitting back and forth as he considered his options. 

“Actually… can I just take it off your hands once it’s finished today?”

Lena’s expression turned suspicious as she nodded her head, crossing her arms over her chest and looking him over. “I can, but why would you need to get it today? Did something happen with Eddie’s truck?”

“No, his truck is fine.”

Buck was absolutely hedging around the question, and he knew that kind of thing wouldn’t fly with Lena; the look that flashed across her face was nothing short of dangerous, and Buck’s suspicions were confirmed—it would be very dumb to get on her bad side. “Buck, if something happened with Eddie or Chris—”

Okay, his smile was definitely a grimace now. 

“No, nothing happened. Apparently, nothing has been happening, I just… read into a few things I shouldn’t have, kind of lost track of myself. No big deal, I promise,” Buck insisted, because even if he was absolutely feeling a fool, he knew the blame squarely rested on his shoulder. “But the only reason I got stuck here in the first place was because I was en route to the family for Christmas, so…”

Lena’s face softened as Buck spoke, letting out a sigh as she nodded her head. “Well, I get that. But you get to be the one to break that to the Diaz boys, no way am I going to be the one to take that fall. I’ll bring it by your place once I’m finished.”

Buck laughed as he simultaneously felt his stomach sink, his brain automatically piping in with _That’s Eddie’s place. Not mine. I was stupid for hoping otherwise._

Actually telling Eddie and Chris his plan, though, Buck knew full well that conversation was going to suck. He had to be the one to say goodbye, for reasons he admittedly wasn’t comfortable looking too deeply into; he wouldn’t have let Lena take his place there even if she offered to.

Just because he knew it had to happen, though, didn’t mean he had to be brave about it. Buck kept himself contained to Eddie’s guest room when he got back to the house, staring at the ceiling for what felt like hours until Eddie and Chris had come home.

And then he had stayed in bed until he was absolutely sure Ana wasn’t with them.

He was pathetic, but he had long since accepted that. Whatever.

It was probably strange, how quiet the afternoon was, but Buck didn’t even notice it; his mind was a million miles away, in Lake George, on an icy shore instead of a picturesque mountainside. He also didn’t quite notice the look that Eddie gave him when he saw Buck in his fatigues, but Buck never claimed to be the attentive one in the group.

He probably should have guessed that Eddie was picking up on things—subtlety wasn’t really his strong point—but even then, it still took him by surprise when Eddie called him out on it.

“So,” Eddie started, closing the door of the microwave after giving the pre-packaged mac and cheese a quick stir. Chris was in his room, happily passing his time with the wonders of Legos, leaving Buck sitting at the kitchen table staring into a cup of cold coffee. “You gonna tell me why you’ve been so weird all afternoon?” 

Buck could tell that Eddie was trying to go for levity, and he tried to return the favor, but even he could feel his smile fall into more of a grimace. “Yeah, uh. Lena finished my Jeep. I’m good to go.”

“...Oh.” If Buck looked into the expression on Eddie’s face, he might have seen disappointment, or even regret, but Buck had certainly learned his lesson about reading too deeply into things. “I mean, that’s good, right? When were you thinking about heading out?”

Buck felt his jaw tighten as he ran a thumb over the rim of the mug, lifting it up and taking a quick sip, almost gagging at the taste of the long forgotten coffee. “I, uh. I was actually going to leave after dinner. I’ll be out of your hair and up there before bedtime.” 

He put his Buckley press smile back on his face as he nodded his head, looking back up at Eddie for the first time since he had spoken to Lena earlier, a jolt running through him as they made eye contact.

Buck may have had a shitty poker face, but Eddie had zero poker face. 

“You know you don’t… have to go, right? If you’re just thinking that you have to go to get out of our hair… that’s not how we feel.”

“Buck, where are you going?”

Buck felt his hackles rise as he heard Chris’ voice from the kitchen entryway, his shoulders immediately tensing up as he turned around. Chris was a cute kid, okay, and seeing him look less-than-thrilled was not a good look on him.

“Well, kiddo, just like you get to spend Christmas with your dad, now that Lena fixed my car up, I’m gonna head on up to spend Christmas with my parents too,” Buck said, trying to frame it in the most positive way as he took a knee next to Chris, knowing entirely well that he would absolutely not be able to handle a sad Chris.

“Well… you’re coming back, right?”

Buck sighed as he rolled his jaw in his socket, shaking his head after a long while. “I don’t know, buddy. So you’ll have to tell me all about the presents you get from Santa tomorrow, okay?” Buck said, hoping he was even a little successful in redirecting Chris’ attention.

He wasn’t sure if he was successful, honestly—but Chris spent all of dinner by his side and gave him an extra long hug before Buck started up his car, so he considered that a win. 

He was making the right choice. He had to be making the right choice. He just had to keep repeating that to himself, especially when Eddie pulled him into a tight hug. He hated it, obviously; he hated leaving them behind, he hated the thought of spending Christmas anywhere else, hated dressing himself back in his fatigues so he wouldn’t be taking anything of Eddie’s with him, but it was still the right choice.

It was.

It _had to be_.

Right?

* * *

Eddie was man enough to admit he was… unhappy, come Christmas morning. But he was also a dad, so he was unhappy on the inside and over the moon for Chris and his various legos and the sort on the outside. 

Chris had done his due diligence and woken Eddie up at the crack of dawn, pulling himself up into Eddie’s bed and sitting on his stomach; once Eddie was able to breathe again, he had curled his arms around Chris and rolled over, snorting playfully as he tickled his kid, letting that simple connection be the reason he got out of bed that morning.

God, Chris. What had he done to deserve such a good kid? He knew it wasn’t fair to rely so much on a child to get out of bed, but… well, Eddie would take whatever he could get at this point.

Following Chris’ lead once again, he wrapped himself in an old pair of pajama pants and a robe before walking into the kitchen, and if he was wearing the same shirt Buck had left folded up on the guest bed the night before, that was a secret that no one had to know. 

(He understood, of course, that the minute Hen and Karen joined them for Christmas lunch, his sad, pining secret would be all but broadcast around the fucking state. But that was then, and this was now.)

He wasn’t sure if Christmas breakfast was any sort of tradition they had, but he happily whipped Chris up some pancakes and eggs (pretty much the best breakfast food he could offer), starting the day off the best way he knew how, in hopes that the good mood would carry him throughout the day.

Maybe, he thought at first, he was just lonely—but he loved watching Chris open up a small mountain of presents, cherishing the firefighter action figure Chris had given him, and it wasn’t like this was the first Christmas they had spent with just the two of them, so...

Nope. Eddie just missed Buck. 

He missed a man that he had spent a week with. And that was, apparently, enough to hamper a major holiday for him. 

God he was pathetic. He was pathetic and lonely and a huge sap and—

“Dad, there’s another present here!”

He was pulled out of his own self loathing as Chris pulled out another small box, wrapped in gold foil. His curiosity immediately piqued as Chris brought him the tiny box, the fancy script on the tag reading ‘To Eddie, From Santa’.

He felt his heart jump into his throat when he read the tag, his smile freezing in place as he slowly undid the wrapping paper, doing that thing everyone hates where he slipped his fingers through the tape instead of tearing the paper, trying to buy himself as much time as possible.

Regardless of his strategies, he was soon left with a small, velvet box in his hands. He was pretty proud of how steady his hands were as he opened the box, his own little laugh taking him by surprise as he tilted the box into his other hand. 

A glittering, crystal ornament sat in his hand, gold and glittering and heavy in his hand. The details on the firetruck were ornate, but his favorite part by far was the tiny ‘POCONOS’ that Buck had obviously written across the side with a felt tip pen. 

“Santa listened!”

Eddie looked up to see Chris staring at him from the couch cushion he had dragged onto the floor, jaw slack and eyes wide. 

“What do you mean, bud?”

“Buck said he’d ask Santa for a new truck, and Santa listened!”

Eddie felt something warm squeeze around his chest, trying his best to keep that smile up as he looked back at the ornament in his hand. Buck was that good a person, apparently, though Eddie knew he shouldn’t have been surprised.

How the fuck had he fucked everything up?

A quick knock on the door had Eddie pulled back into reality and had Chris gasping, scrambling off of the couch and haphazardly making his way to the front door. Tying his robe tighter around him, he sighed as he wrapped the ornament cord around his finger, fully expecting to show Hen the sad little present he would probably be crying about later on.

What he was not expecting, however, was Chris’ high pitched screech as he opened the door.

“Buck!”

Buck? 

Oh shit.

Eddie stumbled into the entryway as Buck scooped Chris into his arms, giving him a very loud hug as Chris squeaked in joy. 

Eddie had to rub his eyes twice to make sure he wasn’t hallucinating; seeing Buck standing there, in the flesh, in the same fatigues he had been wearing when Eddie had rescued him was a bit too much for his brain to handle at one time. 

“Buck, I gotta show you my toys!”

Eddie was fully on autopilot as he stepped aside, letting Chris go past him as fast as he could on his shaky little legs—Eddie had long since given up trying to get him to stop running around the house—and finally found his own feet, shrinking the distance between he and Buck as cold air pooled around his feet.

“You’re… you’re here?”

Eddie hated how unsteady his voice sounded, not because of his own self-perceived weakness or whatever, but because of the wounded expression that flashed across Buck’s face as he nodded. 

“I got to the lakehouse and parked my car and no one was there. I have no idea if my parents just had different plans, or… hell, if they sold the place,” Buck said, and Eddie felt his heart sink. He had figured that Buck’s parents didn’t exactly have the best relationship with their son, but that was a whole new level of low. 

Buck, though, was still smiling as he continued, and Eddie felt a surge of protectiveness ricochet around his chest. “But I realized it didn’t even fucking matter because I didn’t want to be there anyway, so I crashed there for the night and showered and… uh. You opened the ornament. That’s, uh, I’m glad you… like it?” 

Eddie blinked, his face a little strained as he followed Buck’s gaze to the little crystal bauble in his hand, barely registering the nervous rambling that Buck was getting himself wound up into. “I wanted to get you something bigger and better, you know? But there was only one day in the mall, and I hadn’t gotten my last check from the Navy, so you can pretend that it’s—”

“Buck, it's perfect. I’m going to hang this on the tree right now, but… look, I’m sorry, but seeing you here is like, the best present I could have asked for—I mean, you’re like, better than any—fuck, okay, why don’t you come in and we can talk—”

“Eddie, I’m just passing through.” Any relief that Eddie felt as Buck cut him off before he got too embarrassing or said something that he would probably have regretted, was immediately overshadowed by the dread he felt sit in his stomach as Buck continued to speak. 

“I’m on my way out to California, I’m gonna try to get a job back on the coast. I’m probably going to be driving for a few days, but I won’t have a phone in that time, and I don’t have your number anyway, so I just wanted to—”

“No.”

Eddie’s tone came out a little more harsh than he intended, sure, but he knew he had to nip that in the bud before Buck talked himself out of staying for the second time. “It’s Christmas, Buck. Please, please stay. For lunch, at least. Hen and Karen are coming over, and they’re bringing their kids, and you can stay. You should stay. I want you to stay.”

The nearly miserable look on Buck’s face threw Eddie for a loop as he shook his head, pushing a hand through his hair as he looked back to his Jeep. “Eddie, I shouldn’t. You know I shouldn’t. And even if you don’t, I don’t want to—I don’t want to be fifth wheeling it on Christmas Day just because you feel bad for me.” 

...fifth wheeling it? Did Buck think that Chris and Nia were dating or something?

“Besides, you and Ana should be spending the day together with Chris, and—”

“Woah, Buck, what?”

“—and I know that I was misreading whatever happened in the kitchen, but that doesn’t mean I want you to—”

“No, hang on, rewind. Why would Ana be spending Christmas with us instead of with Lena?”

Buck’s sentence faded out as Eddie cut him off, the look on his face switching from confusion to incredulousness as he processed what Eddie had said. 

“Why—because you’re getting married, Eddie, Jesus!” Buck’s tone was an octave higher than Eddie had ever heard before, and even if the laugh he gave was involuntary, it was completely necessary as it finally cut into Buck’s panicked train of thought.

“Buck, I’m not getting married. To anyone? And if I was, it would probably be to someone who was into me. Or at least, into guys. Both of which rule out Ana.”

It was Buck’s turn to stare at him, mouth flapping uselessly as Eddie waited, something that felt dangerously close to hope bubbling up in his chest as he let Buck take his time to get his bearings about him.

“...But… you and Ana were talking about your wedding yesterday, and she was talking about how much time she spent with Chris, and I figured you just didn’t wear your ring when you were working, and you just seemed to click with her so well, and...”

“Ana is my best friend, and she’s also Chris’ teacher. Miss Flores? I know he’s talked about her before. She and Lena are getting married in a week, not she and I. I’m officiating their wedding, that’s what we were talking about yesterday.”

Normally, Eddie wouldn’t have taken such pride in the way Buck’s face pinked, but honestly, he was mostly over the moon that whatever the issue was hadn’t been intentional. He was sincerely worried that he had done something to drive Buck away—but now, he knew, he had a chance to reverse whatever damage had been done. 

“And, while we’re talking about things that apparently need clarifying? What you were talking about, in the kitchen, you didn’t misread anything. I wanted to kiss you, so bad, and I think you wanted to kiss me too.”

“Close the door.”

Eddie felt his face fall—had he really misread everything again?—as Buck stood his ground, the small smile on Buck’s face doing little to soothe his nerves as he tried to backtrack, opening and closing his mouth a few times before Buck sighed. “Eddie, just trust me and close the door.”

Though every instinct in Eddie’s body was screaming at him not to, Eddie closed the front door right as Chris came back into the living room, arms stuffed with toys as he kept his steps even. 

Thankfully, Buck didn’t leave him waiting for long. He had the door open before Buck could knock twice, his brow arched as he gestured to Buck again, but Buck wasn’t even looking at him. 

He was looking up, up at the door frame.

Where he had obviously, hastily, jammed some mistletoe into the siding. 

Eddie stared at the little green sprig for a solid three seconds before he looked back to Buck, who was now grinning at him, cheeks pink but eyes hopeful. 

“Buck? You… you really want—”

“Merry Christmas, Eddie.”

Eddie beamed as he stepped forward, pulling Buck into his space easily, marveling at the way their bodies fit together as he tugged Buck’s waist firmly against his own. 

Kissing Buck made sense in a way that Eddie really, really couldn’t understand. Buck’s lips were warm against his own, body fluid and responsive in Eddie’s arms as he dipped Buck back, and Eddie felt a shiver go down his spine as Buck threaded his fingers in his hair.

He felt like fireworks were going off. Or, maybe, that bells were ringing. Or like he had stepped on a live wire? He wasn’t sure how to describe it, wasn’t sure if it was something he could put into words, how fucking _right_ this all felt. It felt like his body was alive and awake for the first time, even if the background was Chris’ giggled “Ewwww!”.

As he pulled back, warmth seeped into his skin when he felt Buck smile against his lips, finding a laugh bubble across his lips as Buck tiptoed up (which was a truly unique feeling, considering he was taller than Eddie was) and pressed their foreheads together.

This is what he wanted for Christmas. For Christmas, hell, forever. It was all he could do to vocalize it, swallowing the fear and the lump in his throat as he spoke up.

“Stay? Please?”

“Okay.”

Was it cliche? Probably. But it was Buck, it was Christmas, and it was perfect.

* * *

One year later, the story of how he almost lost his boyfriend to his best friend was still Eddie’s favorite story to tell, no matter how many times Buck had insisted he wasn’t that dramatic and how many times Ana had basically told him off for not being upfront with Buck about his feelings in the first place. 

“Hey, Chris, I think there’s one more box beneath the tree. Can you get it for me?”

To say things had been amazing would be an understatement. 

Buck had continued his work with the PFD (and excelled at it, Eddie was proud to say) and he and Eddie still spent almost every day together, just like they had that first week after Buck drove his Jeep directly into their lives. While Eddie wasn’t a genius by any stretch, he still knew a good thing when he saw it, and he wasn’t fool enough to risk letting this go. 

A year ago, it was a little velvet box that had changed he and Buck’s relationship for the better; so, call it sentimental, but he couldn’t help relishing in the look on Buck’s face as he took that same box from Chris and got down on one knee, making sure that they would be spending every Christmas together, as a family, from then on. 

**Author's Note:**

> [come scream at me on tumblr.](https://florenceandthemachine.tumblr.com)


End file.
